With the Prime Minister of Canada set to take his nation to the polls in a just-called snap election, he has already been targeted by a CBC News article about his prior private sector activities setting up green funds in Bermuda.

While the article does not directly accuse Mark Carney of anything illegal, it claims that during his time on Brookfield Asset Management’s board, he co-chaired funds that used the “Bermuda tax haven” to attract investors.

The author said Bermuda ranks among the largest “tax havens” in the world and that investments from Canada to Bermuda increased from $10 billion in 2011 to more than $130 billion in 2023.

But it fails to mention the 2011 Canada-Bermuda Tax Information Exchange Agreement, which made Bermuda subsidiaries of Canadian corporations eligible for certain Canadian tax benefits that were otherwise only available to foreign affiliates resident in countries with which Canada had a tax treaty.

The TIEA provided a more tax-efficient regime for Canadian companies to continue to do business in Bermuda, or to bring new business to Bermuda.

In addition, the pejorative term “tax haven” means different things to different people; and different lists cite different jurisdictions; while others use different metrics.

The article said Mr Carney’s Liberal Party refuses to answer questions about his time in the private sector when he oversaw investment funds dedicated to the transition to a net-zero carbon economy, worth a total of $25 billion.

CBC named the funds as the Brookfield Global Transition Fund ($15 billion) and the Brookfield Global Transition Fund II ($10 billion), launched in 2021 and 2024 respectively.

The media quotes Silas Xuereb, political analyst with the group, Canadians for Tax Fairness, that he hopes the next federal government will impose new limits on the use of tax havens, in particular by ending bilateral agreements with countries like Bermuda and strengthening international treaties to curb tax evasion.

Mr Xuereb said it may seem “ironic” that environmental funds were registered in a tax haven.

But he said Mr Carney was understandably motivated by profit in the private sector, and hopes that the Liberal leader “will have very different goals now that he is in political power.”

Mr Carney left Brookfield in January, but he said last year that "the Brookfield Global Transition Fund strategy is aiming to deliver strong risk-adjusted financial returns for investors and make meaningful environmental impacts for people and the planet."